On television, home and garden programmes are capturing the imagination of the nation, prompting many of us to cast a critical eye over our homes and interiors.
TV film maker i2i, which specialises in documentaries for the Discovery Channel and programmes for the homes and leisure sector here and abroad, has recently been filming at UK flooring manufacturer, British Wood Floors in Cheshire. The day of filming forms part of a 15-part documentary featuring the renovation and conversion of a 17th century barn in Malvern, Worcestershire into a house. It follows the various stages of the conversion, including replacement of the rotten floors on the first floor with custom-produced solid European oak plus American black walnut.
i2i contacted British Wood Floors because it manufactures solid wood flooring in a range of species of imported material and is able to offer a choice of widths, lengths and profiles to high quality standards.
As British Wood Floors is both timber importer and flooring manufacturer, it offered the TV company the opportunity to see the process all the way through and was also able to provide rapid delivery. This gave plenty of flexibility as the choice of species for the flooring had not been made when filming commenced.
“We were able to produce any shape for them,” said general manager Mick Mellor. The i2i crew spent a day at the company’s plant filming the whole process of importing, kiln drying and machining solid wood flooring. Programme presenter, Alan Hurd, is a well-known woody – a joiner by trade – who interviewed Mick Mellor throughout the filming.
Backed by a timber stock valued at £6m, 90% of British Wood Floors’ production uses temperate hardwoods from the US and Europe. Oak and beech are most popular, with ash, cherry, hard maple, sycamore, red alder and black walnut accounting for much of the balance. Jatoba and other exotic species are also available. The plant operates three Unimat moulders and a Randomat-E random end matcher, which gives the capacity to offer rapid delivery of solid tongued and grooved, end matched flooring in three thicknesses – 10mm, 14mm and the standard 20mm thickness, with widths up to 210mm and lengths up to a maximum of 3m. The company does not import any finished product, offering 100% British manufactured hardwood flooring to standard and custom specifications.
“Hardwood flooring is big business now,” said Mick Mellor. “There are lots of qualities available, but our machining is very accurate.” The flooring is marketed only through distributors and flooring contractors and is supplied in three main grades. Character grade allows sound knots up to 50mm, whereas Natural grade limits knots to 30mm and Prime grade permits only small tight live pin-knots. The range also includes the only UK-produced two-line border flooring in combinations of oak and contrasting species such as American black walnut.
“Recent contracts have ranged from the new Manchester Cathedral Visitor Centre to the Joseph designer clothes shops in London,” said Mr Mellor. “Future investment plans include the installation of a pre-finishing line, which may well help British Wood Floors to achieve its objective of becoming the largest manufacturer of solid hardwood flooring in the UK within the next couple of years.”
Barn Free is scheduled to begin broadcasting in July, initially on the Discovery Home & Leisure channels, hopefully giving a boost to the market for solid wood flooring manufactured in the UK. i2i expects that ultimately there will be as many as 200 transmissions of Barn Free from Kazakhstan to Cape Town.
